His school has campuses or professor led semesters abroad in various places all over the world, so to keep things easy with credit transfer, (treated same as at main campus if you use their schools or approved programs,) he can chose from those. He can even do a work abroad semester, particularly in conjunction with study abroad to round out the year. Those are nice because you are paid pretty well and often have housing provided or at least an allowance. He's looking forward to doing 3 semesters of internship as well as study abroad. No tuition charge, ability to explore the US and even the world on someone else's dime, all while earning much more money than coming home to work at Staples for the summer would get him.

Be careful though he might end up like me and not come back :)

I hear you. I almost stayed in France myself after living there for 14 months. Would have stayed if Mom had not extracted the promise I would return even before I left.

If it were not my job to encourage him to spread his wings and become independent, I would have been very tempted to encourage him to go with his first instinct to stay nearby, but at my prodding he looked at schools far and near and got his first choice which is a 13 hour marathon drive from home. Choice number two was only 20 minutes away. He absolutely loves it, and I am finally managing not to burst out crying at unpredictable moments. I guess I prepared him better than I prepared myself!

IP,
who actually likes her kids, and can't understand the parents who are eager for the kids to move out